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Principles of Sufism

Original price $21.00 - Original price $21.00
Original price
$21.00
$21.00 - $21.00
Current price $21.00

Al-Qushayri
B.R. von Schlegell (translation)
Paperback, 392 pages
9789839154603

 

This work includes all sections of the Risala concerning the fundamental principles of Sufism; it omits only the biographical notices at the beginning of the work and various highly technical matters at its end. The sections chosen for translation relate to the stations and states of the Sufi path: 43 chapters beginning with Repentance (tawba) and ending with Longing (shawq). This represents half the complete text. Given the perennial centrality to Sufism of the topics discussed in the translation, the title Principles of Sufism seems justified.

 

One of the most widely read Sufi treatises in Arabic, the Risala defines classical Sufism through the use of quotations from the Qur’an, the Prophetic Traditions and reference to the exemplary behaviour of the ascetics and saints. Al-Qushayri illustrates the principles of Sufism with tales and sayings of the first generation of Muslims and of his contemporaries in the 5/11th century.